Aruba is a 32 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, 27 km north of the Paraguaná Peninsula, Falcón State, ► Venezuela and west of ► Curaçao. It is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, it has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. This climate has helped tourism as visitors to the island can reliably expect warm, sunny weather. It has a land area of 193 km².

General maps

History maps

This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Aruba, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Aruba.

Aruba's first inhabitants were the Arawaks. In 1499 the Spanish explorer Alonso de Hojeda discovers the island of Aruba. In 1634 the Netherlands conquered Aruba, followed by other islands in the region, that together become part of the Dutch West Indies. During the napoleonic wars Aruba is occupied by Britain (1805-1816). In 1848 the islands formed the separate colony of Curaçao. Limited self-government was introduced in 1936 and the colony was renamed Netherlands Antilles in 1948.

In 1986 Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles to form a separate Dutch dependency (country inside the Kingdom of the Netherlands).

Satellite maps

Satellite map

Satellietfoto

Notes and references

General remarks:

The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references.

Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections.

Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries.

The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned.

The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.